TECHNOLOGY IS CHANGING YOUR BRAIN, AND THAT’S BAD NEWS

Our modern world is run by technology, specifically digital technology. Most of us live on the Grid. You are able to read what I’m writing here precisely because you are part of this grid life, which is defined by the digital and technological experience. And the experience changes every day.

One of our enduring problems with technology is that it changes too fast. Humans – just like any other species on Earth – take time to evolve. And when our slow-evolving mind meets fast-evolving tech, it is often the mind that gets short-changed. Technology has a lot of negative effects on our brain, and they can become serious and harmful over time.

Here are some of the most significant ways technology can affect and even change your brain. Read on!

Memory

How many phone numbers can you rattle off just from the top of your mind? Chances are, not many, probably two or three of them. Ask older generations who were less exposed to technology though, and you’ll find they remember a lot more of them.

The reason is, we are increasingly dependent on memory-aiding tech. Phone and computer memories are replacing our actual memories, and that in turn is decreasing our brain’s overall capacity for remembering. This process is called ‘cognitive offloading’, and it happens every time you consult the internet to check on some information. The more you rely on technology to act as your memory, the less confident you’ll be using your own over time.

Attention

Digital media and technology have increased our capacity to squeeze more work into a shorter span of time. Mobile devices regularly advertise as a solution for continuing or checking in on your office work while spending time elsewhere, such as with your family or on a vacation. Digital media, in short, pushes us to multitask and touts greater connectivity as the key to it.

But our brain doesn’t really work like that. The human brain works best when it can give a job it’s full attention. When we try to multitask, our capacity for attention doesn’t automatically increase to accommodate all the tasks. Rather, it divides the available amount. Which means you actually have less attention to spare for each of your tasks.

When you do this regularly, i.e. make divided attention into a habit, your natural capacity for attention decreases. After a point, your attention begins to decrease even quicker on each task you set for yourself. Over time, your natural attention span is lowered. Without focus and attention, however, no task can be done well. So a lower attention span essentially means failing to give your best to all the tasks which require your attention.

Abstract Thought

Over-reliance on technology affects another crucial facet of the human mind; the ability to think abstractly. Recent studies point to the fact that our exposure to digital modes of communication is making us more inclined to prefer concrete details over abstract interpretation.

This preference, in turn, leads to an overall decrease in our capacity to effectively interpret disjointed information. Our ability to think abstractly is what allows us to put value to our experiences. Lessening of that ability is harmful not just to our brains, but to society at large as well.

Human Bonding

When abstraction lessens, so does our ability to imagine. And one of the core functions of human society is imagination. Imagination allows us to build trusted relationships between strangers, develop communications, and establish common structures and rules. Basically, when we lose the ability to imagine, we stop understanding the experiences of other people.

Digital media and technology provide us with information about other people, but information is not the only way we learn about others. Visual cues, body language, touch, sound – all of this plays a significant role in building perception. When we see only two-dimensional information about a person, we miss out on all the other details, and our ability to imagine a shared experience is lessened.

Conclusion

Digital technology has been a revolutionary intervention in the history of human civilization. But if not handled with mindful caution and care, this could very well lead to a breakdown of many crucial features of what makes us human. Being mindful of our engagement with technology is the need of the hour. Perhaps we should give it a little more thought, for the sake of our brains.

Stressed? Angry? Panicked? Can’t sleep? Take a deep breath – goes the automatic advice in each of these situations. Humans have been using controlled breathing as a go-to solution for a number of problems for so long that it’s almost a cliché now. But as the saying goes, every cliché has some kernel of truth, and the deep breathing cliché is no exception.

Recent studies in neuroscience reveal the fascinating effects controlled breathing can have on your brain, and the many ways you can use it to your benefit. Read on!

What is controlled breathing?

Breathing is the most natural activity that our body performs, and it does so without thinking. Most of the things we do as humans are learned in our infancy; even the smallest actions like sitting up, grabbing things, walking, speaking. But breathing comes pre-programmed in us, and so it is for most animals.

But try to teach a dog to hold its breath for the count of five and you will fail. Your kid, on the other hand, would do it easily. Humans are one of the extremely few species on earth that can actually establish control over their respiratory functions; we can hold or release our breath at will, we can be aware of our breathing.

There are many functions of our body that come involuntarily to us – like digestion and blood circulation – and are controlled by the unconscious mind. Breathing is also a function of the unconscious mind, but it is different from those others. We cannot regulate our blood flow simply by wishing to do so; but we can regulate our breathing at will.

What it does to your body

You can control and regulate your breath in any manner you like really but the manner that helps us and is usually meant by the term ‘controlled breathing’ is a full oxygen exchange – you take in more oxygen and let out more carbon dioxide.

This is usually done in three steps:

• Breathing in on a rhythmic count through the nose
• Holding the breath for about the same time
• Breathing out through the mouth on a slower or longer count than breathing in

Full oxygen exchange systematically activates the parasympathetic nervous system of our brain. What this does is essentially manages the stress response in our brain, which is a product of the sympathetic nervous system.

How it benefits you

Reduces stress – We are generally in a heightened state of stress during the day. A lot of things we encounter every day can cause our brain to go into fight-or-flight mode, and not always necessarily. Controlled breathing artificially activates our relaxation response, thereby automatically toning down the heightened stress response. This is where the advice of ‘take a deep breath’ comes from.

Lowers anxiety and deepens focus – A direct result of continued heightened stress is anxiety, and while a little anxiety acts as a natural alarm system, continued exposure to it is seriously harmful to our brains. Now the route through which controlled breathing affects our parasympathetic nerve system is the vagus nerve, which acts basically as a calming mechanism. The vagus nerve releases a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine which is directly linked to increased focus and calmness. Controlled breathing increases the flow of acetylcholine in our brains and thereby also increases our sense of calm and focus.

Helps in brain growth – Controlled breathing can literally increase the size of your brain, and the effect is particularly pronounced in older people. Controlled breathing is a crucial part of meditation exercises, and regular practice of meditation has been directly linked with actual growth in the brain’s gray matter.

Conclusion

Breathing is one of the things that comes most naturally to us. But it is also one over which we can have voluntary control. So practicing mindful and controlled breathing is one of the best and easiest things you can do for your brain, starting right about now! Give it a try.

What is the first thing that you associate with the phrase ‘brain damage’?

Most of us will think in terms of an accidental or unforeseen head injury that impairs a person’s cognitive abilities. But you don’t need an accident to damage your brain. The increasing amount of information that we are bombarded with every day has the potential to do the same.

How so?

• Our brain changes physically every time we learn something new. In our brain, all information is channeled through neural pathways. When we learn something new, our brain either opens up new pathways connecting a new set of neurons, or makes an existing pathway stronger with more connections along the same route.

• Not everything we learn is good for our brain. Junk foods are edible, but they do not make us healthy. Similarly, a lot of the information that we come across everyday doesn’t actually make us smarter. If the data we gather is faulty, our reasoning based on that data will be faulty too, and so will our actions based on that reasoning.

This is ‘junk learning’. Just as junk food can make you sick, junk learning can make you dumb. Even more worrying still, the more your brain is fed junk learning the more prone it will be to pick up further junk learning because of the pathways that have already been opened in your brain.

With too much information available at our fingertips now, we are more and more at risk of being swayed by junk learning. So let us identify a few factors that lead to it, and how to get past them.

Change your approach to learning from knowledge acquisition to knowledge investment.

Most of what we know as ‘facts’ are changeable. Our ideas are based on facts that we learned in the course of our formal education, stretching over a good part of two decades. But science has not been sitting idle all these years. It has made strides and in those strides many of our ‘established facts’ have been debunked or updated.

Don’t accumulate facts; invest time in understanding the underlying principles and methods. Learn things that offer long-lasting lessons instead of just current trends. Invest in building adaptability and reasoning skills, so that even if you come across unexpected facts you are capable of assimilating and judging them correctly.

Assume you know nothing.

In 1999, psychologists Justin Kruger and David Dunning introduced what is called the Dunning-Kruger Effect. The idea is: we are most confident about learning anything new right before we start learning it. The more we actually learn, the more complexity and nuance we encounter, and the more unsure we become. This causes a loss of confidence, and subsequently of interest in many of us.

Ready your mind for new things by assuming a clean-slate mindset. Always assume that you know absolutely nothing about the domain before beginning to learn; that way you’ll be protected from the discouragement your brain receives once the threshold proves too difficult.

Avoid confirmation bias.

We are all guilty of confirmation bias. This is a tendency to look for and believe information that confirms what we already think. Our brain resists new learning by employing confirmation bias because making new neural pathways is energy-consuming, and the brain’s instinct is to get things done with as little energy as possible.

Teach yourself to listen in order to understand, not to argue. Several educationalists, philosophers, and psychologists of the past century have stressed that we learn a lot more by proving ourselves wrong than by proving ourselves right. Testing our acquired knowledge through independent verification and engaging with sources holding differing opinions are both crucial for our brain growth.

Avoid ‘celebrity’ influence.

There is a term called ‘Halo Effect’ in psychology. It refers to our inherent bias that makes us trust a person on one thing simply because they are an expert on a completely different thing. For example, when we trust a politician’s opinion on matters of climate over scientific studies, or a scientist’s opinion on foreign policy over a diplomat.

Before you acquire new information, always check whether the source is experienced or knowledgeable enough in that field to provide expert information.

Conclusion

Learning is a lengthy process; it eats away at both our time and energy reserves, which is why most of us are resistant to learning. And yet constant learning is the only way we grow in our lives and careers. So when you learn, make sure not to do so in vain by feeding your brain cognitive junk.

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